Blue Rose (A Flowering Novel)

Blue Rose

A Flowering Novel

Copyright 2013 Sarah Daltry

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the publisher or author.

This is a work of fiction. Any names resembling any persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.

Find Sarah Daltry online at
http://sarahdaltry.com

Published by SDE Press

Cover by Shoutlines Design

Also by Sarah
Daltry

Novels

Lily of the Valley (Flowering)

Blue Rose (Flowering)

Bitter Fruits (Eden’s
Fall #1)

Backward Compatible: A Geek Love Story

Novellas

Star of Bethlehem (Flowering)

The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock

The Quiver of a Kiss: The Seduction of Helen of Troy

Coming Soon

Orange Blossom (Flowering)

Ambrosia (Flowering)

Immortal Star (Bitter Fruits #2)

Daughter of Heaven (Bitter Fruits #3)

Scandal

Primordial Dust

How Quick Bright Things

Acknowledgments

This isn’t a traditional acknowledgments section, because I wanted to say something about this novel in particular, as well as about
Lily of the Valley
. Jack and Alana have problems. Sure, Lily does as well, but both Jack and Alana have been through some serious traumas. They handle it differently; Jack turns to alcohol and thoughts of suicide, while Alana seeks therapy and takes too much medication. They both tend to use sex to hide their pain.

In real life, though, these things happen. Suicide is the number three killer of young people in the United States, and rape/abuse statistics are terrifying. The events of this novel are horrific, and Alana doesn’t
always handle things all that well, but who would?

If you or someone you know is either suicidal and/or has been sexually assaulted, please help them. Because I love these characters, but I love living people more.

Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide:
http://www.sptsusa.org/

RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network):
http://www.rainn.org/

“This hour I tell things in confidence;

I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.”

Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

This is dedicated to anyone who has been broken, but has healed or is ready to heal.

1

Four. My life has been shaped by four people. Four
men
, to be more specific. My father, my stepfather, my best friend, and my boyfriend. The first two shaped it in horrible ways, but what I am,
who
I am, is all because of four men.

My pants are fraying around the hem and the heel of my left shoe is loose, but I walk into the office exuding confidence. If there’s one thing I
’ve learned over the last twenty years, it’s that weakness will kill you.

The receptionist looks at me and rolls her eyes. She hates me. I don’t know
why
she hates me, but she’s not even subtle about it. Once a week, I come in here, and once a week, she makes a big show of how much she hates me.

“Dr. Mellon isn’t in today,” she says, like I just strolled in out of the blue for a therapy appointment, hoping my psychiatrist would be ready to see me.

“I know. I have another intake screening. A Dr…” I rummage through my purse, looking for the notepad where I wrote down the name. I should have typed it into my phone, because my purse is just a collection of scraps of paper, but somehow I manage to find it. “Jonkowski.”

“I see.”
Apparently this is upsetting to the receptionist, whose name I still don’t know, because she purses her lips, types something into her computer, and then sighs, quite loudly. “She’s in a meeting. Please have a seat.”

I’ve been coming here for two years, since I turned eighteen and my pediatrician felt I needed more “adult” treatment. My mom has crappy insurance, so every ten to twelve weeks, I have to go through yet another intake
assessment to verify that I’m still in need of services. Dr. Mellon is the fourth therapist I’ve had in two years. Sometimes they take the recommendation of the agency and allow me to continue my path of counseling, and sometimes I have to start over. A lot comes down to the intake appointments, which are basically just another hour of me repeating the same damn story I have to repeat a few times a year.

I should just write it down. Maybe they could fax my statement over to the insurance company and some entry level representative could decide if I
’m actually screwed up, if what happened to me deserves an hour of therapy a week and a perpetually renewable Xanax prescription.

The receptionist glares at me some more.
I’m guessing she’s forty, maybe a little older. She’s overweight, but she isn’t even ugly. Except for her personality. Maybe if she put more effort into being a decent person and less into glaring at me, she would be happier. I flash her a huge fake smile, but she just rolls her eyes and turns back to her computer, muttering something under her breath.

Anxiety builds inside
of me. It’s ironic, being anxious before therapy about anxiety, but I don’t like meeting new therapists. Even if I didn’t have to recount my whole stupid story yet again, I would hate it. I never know if I’ll like them. Some are really nice, but some… I had one therapist tell me, during an intake assessment, that I caused all my own problems by being promiscuous and having no morals. This was
after
I told him what had happened to me, and why I do what I do. I left crying, anxious, ready to fight. Instead, I went to the bar, got drunk, and called Jack; we ended up fucking in the bathroom, which was great, until I got sick and spent the rest of the night puking.

I pull out a compact and look at myself. I used a lot of makeup, but you almost can’t see the black circles under my eyes. I need to sleep more. Lately, it’s been getting worse. I know it probably started that night, when Jack told me about that girl, but I can’t tell him. He deserves to be happy. I just need to buy more cover up.

A chime goes off at the receptionist’s desk and she looks at me like I might steal something, before she heads off into the area where the offices are for a minute. When she returns, she’s with an older woman. This new woman has salt and pepper hair and is fairly pretty, even though she must be close to sixty. Her light brown pantsuit is a little ridiculous, but her smile more than makes up for it. I immediately like her. I’m always wary of female therapists, because even after what men have done to me, women are often worse. Women didn’t shape me, but they blamed me. They made me feel bad about myself. Women didn’t physically place the scars on me, but they contributed to the majority of them. A man only put one there.

“You must be Alana,” the woman says, her voice hinting at a slight Southern accent. “I’m Dr. Jonkowski, but please, call me Melinda.”

I take her extended hand and shake it, but my nerves get the better of me. I end up knocking my purse onto the floor from the chair, spilling all the contents inside. Condoms, tissues, my Xanax and my birth control, cell phone, and a ton of random junk slide across the floor. The receptionist picks up the condoms and birth control and she tosses them at me, glaring again. Melinda grabs the rest of the stuff, and my purse, and leads me by the arm into the back hallway. Her touch is comforting, and I already hope that the insurance will let me see her. They probably won’t, because I feel like she might even be able to help me.

Her office is full of plants. Like, a
lot
of plants. There’s a futon instead of a couch, with a knitted blanket over the back of it. I sit on the futon and she takes a seat across from me, in a battered armchair. She has a clipboard on the coffee table between us, but she doesn’t pick it up. I recognize the forms. She needs to ask me a bunch of questions that I have already told countless people before.

“Would you like some tea before
we start?” she asks, even though she’s already seated. I feel a little guilty nodding, but she did offer. “Chamomile okay?”

“Perfect.”

She makes the tea and I watch her. I feel like she could be a relative, making tea and just acting like we’re old friends. She’s saying something about the tea cups, about buying them at Windsor Castle, about the queen being in residence during her visit, but I can’t focus. My brain is swimming. Although I appreciate her efforts at putting me at ease, I know what comes next, and I hate telling my story.

Almost as if she reads my mind, she hands me my tea, sits, and says, “You don’t need to talk about anything you’re not comfortable talking about.”

“I thought that was why I was here. So you could decide if I warrant treatment.”

She looks at me. “Do
you
think you warrant treatment?”

No one has ever asked me how I feel about it before. I nod slowly. “I don’t know how to be alive,” I tell her.

“Are you suicidal?”

I shake my head. Jack is the depressed one. He’s the suicidal one. I have never considered killing myself. I just don’t know how to feel anything. “No, I mean, I just… I’m nothing.”

“What makes you say that?” she asks.

“I just take up space.”

She sips her tea, thinking. “What do think you should be doing?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t do anything. I just exist. I feel nothing. I am nothing. I envision this life, this entire future, but I realize it’s vague, abstract. I offer nothing.”

“That’s not true. I can already tell you that you’re a beautiful young woman. Smart, eloquent.”

I nod. “
Beautiful…”

“What’s wrong with being beautiful?” she asks thoughtfully.